Medical marijuana patients are being left out of the debate

As the presidential election nears and both candidates strive to characterize their strategies for addressing health care as favorable talking points for their campaigns, I am left reflecting on the most important aspect of my personal experience of chronic illness. Tellingly, what is most critical to me receives no mention in stump speeches, is given little media coverage and I’d wager will not be discussed in Wednesday’s debate.[media-credit id=239 align=”alignright” width=”150″][/media-credit]

When I was in my late 20s, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a medical disorder that causes pain in all parts of my body and has no cure. Up to that point, I had been active, worked full-time and led a normal life. For the last 25 years, however, my ability to work, my basic functioning and the quality of my life have been devastated by the pain I experience daily. Needless to say, since the time of my diagnosis I have tried many therapies ranging from pharmaceutical drugs to diet changes to physical therapy. But until a doctor recommended medical marijuana three years ago, I had found little relief from the pain and had not been able to work or live normally.

What does my experience have to do with the upcoming presidential debate in Denver? Quite a bit, actually. There are hundreds of thousands of people suffering from chronic medical conditions like mine who reside in states that have passed medical marijuana laws, facilitating legal access to this life-changing treatment. Although the defining issue of President Obama’s administration was the Affordable Care Act, access to an effective therapy for those with chronic conditions was left out of the debate and the resultant legislation.

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have already passed laws permitting the use of medical marijuana. And yet, the Department of Justice has conducted over 200 raids and issued more than 70 federal indictments against medical marijuana patients and providers across the country. Given the immense budget pressures facing local, state and federal governments, it is astonishing that millions of dollars have been spent by the federal government to execute SWAT-style enforcement actions and costly prosecutions against people who are legally providing medical marijuana to registered patients like me.

This misguided policy orientation completely ignores mounting scientific evidence that compels any thinking policy maker to acknowledge that the time has long since passed to move the regulation of medical marijuana out of the harmful grip of criminal enforcement and squarely into the arena of public health.

Instead of developing a sensible regulatory scheme for the production and distribution of medical marijuana, the federal government continues to lose millions in unearned taxes. Federal resources are used to undermine state laws instead of addressing the myriad issues facing our nation. Every attempt by Congress to pass reasonable legislation that would protect medical marijuana patients and providers has been blocked, mostly along party lines. Interference by the federal government is costing states like Colorado much needed revenue and unnecessarily impeding the development of reasonable regulation.

There is no possible rationale for criminalizing sick people like myself, or for the Justice Department to threaten scores of Colorado property owners, many of them in Denver, with criminal prosecution and asset forfeiture if they continue to lease to medical marijuana providers. And, with seemingly no real concern for public safety, the federal government continues to pressure banks and credit card companies to refuse services to state-licensed medical marijuana providers, forcing patients like myself to walk around with large amounts of cash. Imagine going to fill your prescription at Walgreens and being told you couldn’t pay with your credit card.

As if these reasons weren’t compelling enough to prompt needed change at the federal level, expensive drug therapies, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and the unintended consequences of long-term reliance on potentially lethal pain-killers should at least promote meaningful debate on the public health ramifications of a proven, effective, safe and affordable therapy for those suffering from chronic illness.

And yet, with the presidential election only weeks away, medical marijuana patients are being left out of the debate by both sides.

Teri Robnett, 53, is a Colorado native and resident of Denver, and a medical marijuana patient. She is active in local politics and has testified before the state legislature and Denver City Council on issues concerning medical marijuana.

WE THE PEOPLE need to ask all our (representatives); what is going on???

To: Representative
The Government has told you and I, that CANNABIS is a “Schedule one” controlled substance. Schedule I, meaning little to no use, strong potential for abuse/addiction, and danger to persons using it.
The government actually holds patents for the medical use of the plant.
Please peruse US Patent 6630507 titled “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants” which is assigned to The United States of America, as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Source info is: http://www.patentstorm.us/search.html?q=6630507&s.x=12&s.y=16
Also see: http://www.ccguide.org/young88.php
I must ask; what is going on??? The U.S. war on CANNABIS has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives – and for what?

The President that tries to legalize cannabis will more than likely be assassinated ad it would call for an admission that the government spread propaganda, outright lies, and used these to line the pockets of special interest groups. Making paper out of hemp would have destroyed to tree pulp paper making and cost the chemical companies hundreds of thousands if hemp remained legal. So this new marijuana drug was out there and making black men so violent and out of control that they raped white women and girls. Remember, this was the 1930s. Then out of the other side of their mouths, they spread the idea that cannabis smoking was why the Mexicans were so lethargic, lazy and slow when working. Cannabis was blamed for them taking a siesta every day.. OK which is it? It makes you violent and quite possibly about to commit rape or too lazy to work and wanting to sleep all the time? So,m whoever tries this at the highest level would have to admit everything and face thousands if not millions of lawsuits for false imprisonment to being held responsible for numerous deaths due to it being schedule 1. And why would one person who gets caught in Texas introducing an undercover DEA agent to an LSD dealer gets 23 years and he had nothing to do with the sale and got no money off it and then a crack dealer with several 8 balls in California may only get a month and probation while an ounce of pot will get you a nickel in federal prison in most states? Ludicrous.

Legalized hemp would not put police in the unemployment line. It would free up Thousands of police to work on other things like, to find missing children, or to work on stopping the slavery market, even track down killers.

Oil, plastics and paper industry can convert to processing hemp and make more money. The logging industry can use all there clear cut land and grow commercial hemp and sell it to the oil, plastics and paper industry. It is a win win for all. Look at all the people the die every year in the logging industry Fatality rate for loggers per 100,000 workers: 92 in 2011! Growing commercial hemp would be a lot safer.

gaaak

Google “6630507” and then KannaLife Sciences. The government doesn’t want you (or ANYONE) growing their own, as they want to sell you theirs through Big Pharma.
The hypocrisy is incredible.

No matter how many people sign the petition to have it as a question in one of the next two debates it will not happen. Neither canidate wants to touch the issue even though over half of Americans feel they should.

As a medical cannabis patient in Colorado myself, I feel incredibly lucky to have access. That being said we are treated as second class citizens having no protection from evictions or job loss just for using cannabis to treat disease. Only rescheduling cannabis at the federal level will give us the true access we all need.

Thank you for speaking up as a patient. I owned a medical marijuana center and tried to help a friend/patient who was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It took the state so long to process his paperwork that he died before he got his “red card” so he could legally use medical marijuana. My hope is that by legalizing it, even medical marijuana eligible patients would have immediate access. Imagine having any other “prescription” written for you by your doctor but having to wait 2 months before you could use it! Insane!

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

Posts by Category

Posts by Category

Idea Log Archives

Idea Log Archives

About The Idea Log

The idea log The Denver Post editorial board shares commentary and opinion on issues of interest to Coloradans.